Furthermore, PRO 7’s license expires in November and the booming group needs to take the offensive now, before critics try to block a sweet 10-year renewal.

At a news conference scheduled for July 25 to release figures on the group’s performance in fiscal 1994, Kofler plans to announce management’s intention to turn PRO 7 into a joint stock company – the first time a network will have chosen to do so in Germany. Though the shareholders will remain the same at first, a public stock offering could come as early as next year.

Such a move would submit the company to the highest degree of public scrutiny. Corporate disclosure requirements are the strictest for a joint stock company, or AG (Aktiengesellschaft).

Though no value has yet been put on the company, it is expected to report 1994 profits of more than DM100 million ($72 million) on gross revenues of $863 million.